30 before 30

Well endsems are over! and after a thesis presentation,I'll be done with my bachelors engineering education. Its ,needless to say, a new beginning for all of us. People have planned all sorts of stuff for their life ahead. And I am no exception.

I turned 22 today, and feel its an appropriate day for me to write my 30 before 30 list. It was in my mind from a long time but never got around to writing it,so here it goes( in no particular order):

1)Want to start a company and turn it into a fledgling venture which actually does something useful.
2)Want to learn Saxophone and perform for a huge audience.
3)Want to try various adventure sports(paragliding,sky-diving,snorkelling,scuba-diving,deep-sea diving,wind-surfing,anything crazy will do)
4)Want to go to Antarctica on an expedition and live a day like Bear Grylls.
5)Want to go to Iceland,Egypt,South Africa,Bora Bora and other untouched places.
6)Want to own a designer house.
7)Want to own a designer car.
8)Want to learn Kenjutsu.
9)Want to learn Clay Modelling.
10)Want to be in a very good shape.
11)Want to take up a village and transform it into a place where all people are educated,all have enough to eat and all have jobs.
12)Want to start making canvas art in my free time and showcase at a gallery.
13)Want to own a kickboxing bag and gloves and practice boxing.
14)Want to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
15)Want to meet a famous hollywood/bollywood star.
16)Want to get listed in world's youngest billionaires list.
17)Want to meet a Korean movie actress.
18)Want to learn swimming.
19)Want to meet creators of South Park and go to their studio.
20)Want to make a movie on a shoe-string budget.
21)Want to learn cooking some exotic dishes.
22)Surprise my family.
23)Surprise my friends.
24)Drop at a really old friend's place after many years without giving him a hint.
25)Meet my old school teachers who taught me when I was very young.
26)Meet Bill gates and Richard Branson.
27)Fall in love.
28)Speak at a commencement of some big university.
29)Travel first class on a private jet.
30)Travel on a private yacht.

So that's about it.Sounds too utopian? Well 30 under 30 lists are utopian!
The list includes many things that many people want,so things like money/fame,no surprises there!
Anyways there are other things that I look forward to more.

Frequently used verbs : Learn,try,meet,to go/travel,own.

Will check back in another 8 years! Ciao for now!

Farewell and stuff

Ya,well like all the other colleges, we had our farewell too.It was pretty decent.

Some notable pointers :

*Only two faculty came( one was HOD due to his obligation,and other was a new faculty,so he came just to experience it).I guess all the other faculty is pissed or they don't care to say a final word to the batch they spent 4 years with.Nonetheless,I don't give a damn.Everbody has a right to do what they want.Expectations make this world somewhat less beautiful!

*Many juniors came but left after the food was done.No surprises there! Happens all the time but it hits you when its yours!

*Food was amazing and so were the host(3rd yr guys).My very best wishes to them and many thanks for keeping us company till the end and giving us a great farewell.

*The venue was horrible! No AC.Don't blame the juniors. IIT kind of tries to be very controlling of the use of its premises for apparently no sensible reasons.These guys are just not social or they think that giving a bare minimum of an AC room for a farewell is probably asking for too much!

*Night of confessions,revelations and experiences soon followed. Although many of the incidents discussed had a sexual overtone.Probably some hot topics never change.

The thing was followed by a t-shirt scribbling session. Somehow half the comments written on my t-shirt were related to 'balls' :D After this followed our DP where we got drunk and talked about business(Ravi said he was investing in some web company,goofy and sudhanshu wanted to take over our business),rajkiran,sudar and I talked about taking LSD and getting high and regretting why didn't we meet before,mayur didn't drink much,so we were devoid of his fundae on why our batch is the best batch.

Here are some of the comments I recieved(letter case/punctuations/abbreviations maintained) :

U got balls dude - G.Abhilash

U r irritating and u r fun buddy - Aditya Upadhyay aka Goofy

You wish you had his balls - Mayur

HATS OFF TO UR DREAMS.U SHOULD SUCCEED. - Thauseef

BOND - Anonymous

Never worried of being (called) a fool. - VENU

BECOME THE NEXT(written,then crossed) BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY - Adithya Sagar

Junkie(wannabe) - Rajkiran

Cartman of Biotech - Mayur

I am an arrogant and selfish bastard - Mayur on behalf of someone else

MOST IRRITATING,U SUCK,IDIOT BT STILL U GOT THE BALLS! - Chandrashekar Singh alias Cool Chandu

JACK of all trades, still I rock :-) MISS YA BRO - Akshay alias Tau

I deeply appreciate your attitude & courage.Good Luck. - Garima

Great boobs dude - Ravi Shankar

THE UNIQUE MIND | HEADSTRONG - Chavan

LIFETIME PARTNER !!! - Mohit aka Commander

Overall,it was cool.Good times.

Love as a weapon

Love is the most misunderstood thing in this world.Most people believe love is beautiful or love is 'good'.Love however can be just as good as heaven or as bad as hell depending on how you use it.

Let me give you an omnipresent example. A mother and a son* relationship-the most selfless,most giving relationship in this world,nothing comes above it can become bad for the son. A mother finds it hard to see any difficulty/discrepancy in the son's behaviour.According to her,all is fine but the world knows all sons are not the best people.Criminals have moms too. A mother usually never looks at the contents of a dish her son likes.She is too preoccupied by the happiness on her son's face that she completely ignores that the dish might be giving her son's heart or pancreas a hard time.

People go on ranting about how love is the most selfless thing in this world.Although there is nothing more selfish in this world than love itself.Period.

Love intensity ranking :

# 1 : Self-love or your love for yourself. Hence,you are your biggest friend or enemy.

# 2 : A mother and a child love . The person,after you,who has the highest effect on you.

# 3 : All other love.

* 'son' is just an example here and is completely replaceable by 'daughter'.

WITNESS YOUR DEATH

WITNESS YOUR DEATH

Para 1

i hope you cry and weep through the nights....
you turn all blind
and you cannot see the lights....

better be prepared,you lowlife
your days are numbered,
And you cannot hide...
The fire of revenge
Is burning in my veins
All you can do is
burn in this rain.....

On a black day,you will feel the wrath
your soul will turn hollow
and you shall witness your death...

Para 2

i hope your blood will freeze through the mind...
the master of the grave
will call you out tonight...

Once again you betrayed my trust
This wont get you
Your laughter and your lust...
And we will see
when the sword of the devil goat
will soon be
pushed down your throat.....

on a black day,you will feel the wrath
your soul will turn hollow
and you shall witness your death...

---

Footnote :
Some Death Metal Lyrics by Me , Bodom is including them in their latest album after they struck a $5mn deal with me recently ;)

23andMe!

No,I haven't turned 23 nor am I fearful that I'm getting old.
23andMe is the newest kid on the block in the biotech arena .A startup funded by our good old Google brothers.( I can see my biotech mates going YAY!!! )
Well,the company was founded by Sergey's wife Anna which made a lot easier for Anna (No surprise there!).The startup sells portable SpitKits for $399 a piece(around INR 20,000),where a person has to spit in the kit provided and has to take his spitted spitkit to a nearby certified lab for detailed genetic profile ( WELL,too much of money and too much of a work for a lazy bum like me just to know what my ancestors were made of and what diseases am I more likely to get in my future life !).

Frankly,how are they making my life easier? Exactly,for what am I paying these people my hard-earned money?What value are they creating in the society?How are they making this world a better place? These are some of the questions every business has to ask itself sooner or later,and these guys certainly haven't done this basic exercise.

Sergey gave all his fundaes on his blog,why he liked the service and how its so great and that he gotta know that he's at a greater risk of getting Parkinson's ( wow,I wudn't like to pay that kind of money to lose my sleep in the night worrying how long is it gonna be before the doctor diagnoses me with Parkinson's....I bet it must've cost him much more than a mere sleep at night in the bed...haha )
Looking at Google's strong contacts,they roped in other investors too like the biotech giant,Genentech and profiled Star Investor Mr. Warren Buffet and Famous Singer Jimmy Buffet among others to play their silly Spitgames ( Spit Parties as they like to call :P :D)
Well,one thing they can look at is helping develop better medicines by studying genetic profiles of a large no. of people,large enough that they can derive some strong analytical analogies among genetic codes and variations in human bodies.But,sadly not much luck there as the human genetic profile has already been hacked under THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT and much of the common genes have been studied.

Nonetheless,its a fun activity for people with extra money to know where your great grandfathers,great great grandfathers belonged to and what you have in common with your famous celebrities etc etc and which diseases are most likely to kill you in your old age.Its one of those things which are "nice-to-have" but certainly not "required".You do something that people really need and they will be only happy to open up their wallet and pay you for it.Simple as that!

The Helping Hand - Uniquely Singapore Experience

“Welcome! Please take a seat”, said a man in a very humble voice dressed up very simply in a white Helping Hand T-Shirt and a pair of blue jeans as we entered the main convention hall of the organization. “You are late” , he continued as he briefed us the portion of the talk we missed. We were given a magazine of the foundation and a handout of the talk by a boy sitting outside the hall who was in his teenage and probably a former drug-addict as was any other volunteer working in that organization . The man, Mr. Robert, was somewhere in his middle age and as he mentioned, had spent a better part of his life, an astonishing period of 24 years of his life, in prison!

The organization building was originally a school which was donated for this cause. The talk being given to us was on different types of drugs available and its various affects on human body and brain. It was indeed very informative and shocking at the same time how these drugs worked and why are they so addicting to people. He told us about the deadliest of the drugs the heroin, cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, rohypnol, upjohn, ice, inhalants et cetera et cetera. It was indeed very saddening to know that these drugs are freely available in the night party circuit.

People who are not able to get these drugs in Singapore due to legal restrictions easily get these in the neighboring countries like Malaysia and Hong Kong, where the laws are much more relaxed. As Mr. Robert told us the scene in the hallowed lanes where it is very common to find drugs, we were terrified. As mentioned, even the police feared going to those lanes. They feared getting deadly diseases which might spread to them if they go close to the drug abusers.

The people there are all drowned in various moods of euphoria experiencing a high, taking more and more injections unknowingly ruining their own lives. It is a terrifying scene. But then many of these people are not blessed with a loving and caring family like most others. Like Mr. Robert himself told us the prime reason for people taking up drugs is to cope up with their stress . Such people are also prone to committing crimes to fulfill their needs which are always increasing.

Robert himself told us he was a gangster before joining the Helping Hand foundation and tried drugs just for the kick it gave him of getting a new high. The same old cigarette didn’t seem to work anymore. He needed something more strong,powerful,something that could make him feel good about himself. In short, he needed drugs and it all started with a cigarette.

I think psychedelics play a major part in what we do, but having said that, I feel that if somebody's going to experiment with those things they really need to educate themselves about them. People just taking the chemicals and diving in without having any kind of preparation about what they're about to experience tend to have no frame of reference, so they're missing everything flying by and all these new perspectives. It's just a waste. They reach a little bit of spiritual enlightenment, but they end up going, 'Well, now I need that drug to get back there again.' The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug.

The Helping Hand has been working for about 21 years now. It has been in inception since 1987.

It is primarily a self-help organization where the drug abusers help each other get rid of this habit. They organization the sports themselves, various social activities, celebrate various festivals and do trips for fun. They also help the organization raise funds by doing various chores like making furniture, picture frames and house removal/relocation and moving services. As Robert showed us around the place, we were literally awed by the amazing work that the people there have been doing. This was what is called living with a pride. Though we were not allowed to meet any of the persons/ex-criminals going through rehabilitation, we could well sense the pride in their eyes as we saw them work. People seemed far happier. Residents are taught to earn an honest living with the use of their hands. Their hands once used to harm themselves and others, are now offered as useful instruments of work in various services.

Residents are given spiritual knowledge so that they can identify themselves to their inner being and open eyes to God, get morally oriented which I think is quite useful when a person is under deep stress and has to deal with the pressures of the society, their family and others. Helping Hand being a half-way Christian organization teaches Christianity i.e. the bible mainly and practices prayers in churches.

Inhabitants are also encouraged to have some sort of physical activity while they’re staying there in the form of various sports, each day. They even hold various competitions amongst themselves .This keeps them pumped up throughout the day and helps them deal with the rehabilitation in a better way as by the time they seek rehabilitation help, they have already done a lot of damage to their body and immune system.

The other major problem faced by the organization is the reabsorbance of the residents back into the society. During the tough times that they had faced, many of them tend to become anti-social and find it difficult later on after the program to get absorbed back into the society. Some who are lucky enough to change themselves may even find problems getting absorbed into the society because many a times the society due to its narrow mindedness or fear may abandon such people and isolate them. In either case, the person has an increased tendency to go back to drugs once again. To take care of this aspect, residents are encouraged to take up social activities like volunteering, going to social gatherings, making friends, and taking up jobs and other such activities so that they can easily open up to society and vice versa.

After all the discussion, I really found a change in my attitude towards these needy men. They had nothing in common but ill-fate. There is a need to help these people get out of this trap and become law-abiding citizens of Singapore and become fruitful to the nation as well as themselves and their families. More and more talks should be held with the community leaders to seek additional views to improve the situation among the respective community groups. Such sessions will allow leaders to come together and discuss ways to bring down the level of drug-abuse in their communities. Such meetings have given fruitful results so far.

The Malay community, for example, wants to intensify efforts to reach out to high-risk Malay students. They call for the introduction of religious studies in schools and more active role for mosques in the anti-drug efforts. There is a strong support for tougher punitive measures for drug abusers. They also suggest that inmates on the Day Release Scheme should do community work in mosques. On the other hand, the Indian leaders want anti-drug messages to be included in the religious preaching at Hindu temples. The abuse of "Ecstasy" pills is noted to be predominantly a problem for the Chinese. Here, the strategy is to de-glamorize the drug and highlight the foolishness and futility of taking these pills.

The analysis of the suggestions clearly highlights the wishes of the different communities for greater involvement in the fight against drug abuse.

The Helping Hand is unique in the sense that everyone, from Executive Director right down to the Residents, is an ex-addict. As such, they understand the problems that are involved . They constantly strive to address these issues as effectively as they can. Their foundation is their strong Christian beliefs and the transforming power of their lord and saviour,Jesus Christ . A measure of their success would be to see their residents finish their programme and go out into the world, successful in what they want to do, happy in life and walking closely with God.

I would like to end this paper with the following quote which beholds a message for today’s youth :

“Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains .It’s their choice. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it’s not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude. “

---- Jesse Jackson, American Civil-Rights Leader, Baptist Minister, Politician

How to conquer the world in two easy steps !

So finally I'm back with my latest blog post after about an year . Couldn't really find much convincing things to write about all this time . Anyways , here it goes.

This blog post will teach you how to conquer the world(yes , you heard that right !) in two easy-to-understand and easy-to-follow steps.

Fact : Everybody has weaknesses .

Step 1 : Identify that weakness .

Step 2 : Exploit it .

Now that you know the divine secret , I expect all to use this methodology with utmost care because as they say " With great power,comes great responsibility ".